FCAT going smooth at Highlands schools

It's test time this week for the 7,543 Highlands County students in grades three through 11 who are facing one or more tested subjects of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

School staff, including principals, assistant principals and guidance counselors, are helping with the district-wide effort to administer and monitor the assessment test.

Even a room in the district office served as a testing center on Tuesday with 12 students, who are studying full-time online through Florida Virtual School, being tested there.

Testing for reading, math and science started Tuesday. The primary testing concludes today, with Friday through March 19 devoted to makeup testing.

Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Becky Fleck reported only one glitch thus far that affected a few tests.

Fleck explained that the test booklets are sealed with a plastic sticky tab. The test instructions direct students to break the seal, but part of the seal goes over a scanning tracking bar.

"When you break that seal, some of it is peeling off that bar," she said. That happened with about a dozen booklets involving fourth-grade reading and fifth-grade math tests.

Fleck notified the Florida Department of Education, which said a number of school districts reported the same problem.

The FDOE said the company handling the testing would be able to deal with the problem.

"It won't cause a problem with the scoring or anything, but it was a cause for concern," Fleck noted.

Fred Wild Elementary School Principal Laura Waldon said her school started a "maximum effort" incentive this year for students who stay focused on the test.

Teachers are watching to see if students are focused during the entire time they are being tested, she said. Students can earn a ticket redeemable for a treat, such as a Popsicle or popcorn, at the end of the day.

Attendance has been very good, she noted.

Avon Elementary Principal Pam Burnham said attendance has been very good at her school also with only two students absent on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We really have had no crises; nothing unusual has happened," she said. "We tested 292 kids today Wednesday.

"The kids seem calm and the parents have been very cooperative getting them here on time so they can eat breakfast and get started on time."

Statewide the only other problem so far involved the vendor sending incorrect seventh-grade test materials to 12 schools in Hillsborough County.

The correct materials were sent out and the district received permission from the FDOE to delay the testing by one day.

A FDOE spokeswoman said the FCAT scores will be released on a similar schedule as last year - writing scores in late April and reading, math and science scores in late May.

The elementary and middle school accountability grades will be released in mid-June.

The high school accountability grades won't be released until mid-November due to the new method of calculating high school grades, which will be based 50 percent on FCAT scores with the other 50 percent being based on other factors including: graduation rate and Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate statistics.

Next year the FCAT will be administered later in the school year.

The writing FCAT will be pushed back from February to March 1-4 and the reading, math and science FCAT will be moved back from March to April 11-22.

The district was notified recently that all the FCAT retakes and the 10th-grade math will be administered online next year, Fleck said. That will enable the state to get the test results quicker.